Fresh Fields

November – Shorter days and a last chance to tidy up before winter sets in…

At the end of last month I bought field 40 and removed some surface rocks. I really wanted to get a crop in the ground on this field as soon as possible and Winter Wheat is the way to go. I spent the whole of the first week of the month preparing,..

…Sowing…

…and Rolling…

…Looks like it’s going to be a foggy night, but that’s the Wheat in the ground 😎

The second week of November and I was surprised to find that one of my Neighbours still had a field of Corn that needed harvesting, so I got on with that…

…Then I turned my attentions to the ongoing preparations of field 3 – applying Lime…

…I also sold my stored Canola.

Moving on to the 3rd week and time for an Autumn clean and to prepare for next Spring. My larger fields, 40 and 12, prompted a review of fertilising arrangements. The Rauch has served well on the smaller fields and using Oilseed Radish to pre-fertilise has worked well but that won’t always be possible – field 40 has not yet been fertilised at all, so it’ll need 2 applications at different stages of the growth cycle of the wheat. I realised that by choosing to go down the liquid fertiliser / herbicide route, I could rationalise my equipment. I already have the John Deere sprayer which I could use for both but being an older machine, it is quite bulky and only covers 9 metres in a pass. Ultimately, I decided that I would trade in both the JD Sprayer and the Rauch Spreader and get a newer Sprayer. I was also going to stock up on Fertilizer and seed. The first task was to move the Herbicide from the vehicle shed into the store shed…

…Then it was off to the dealer to sell the Spreader and Sprayer before hooking up the Bale Wagon and going to get the liquid fertiliser and seed…

…That was then all stored away…

…the supplies will share the shed with the seeder and a planter when we get one.

The last week of November and I took a ploughing task for a neighbour…

My new sprayer was delivered and I parked it in the vehicle shed…

…This Polish made Unia Sleza carries the same 1000ltr quantity as the old sprayer but is more compact. It covers 12m in each pass, so offers an improvement. A lot of modern sprayers can cover double and even triple that width but there are still a lot of smaller fields in this area so they may not be able to work everywhere.

Now I’m ready for Winter. There’s still some Wheat, Oats and Sorghum to sell in December when the prices are best. With luck I may earn enough money to get a planter in time for the coming spring!😎👍

Fresh Fields

September – A slightly quieter month in Osada. We’re largely between crops that I can harvest. There are lots of Potato and Sugar Beet jobs in September, but the only crop I can cut is Soya Beans. But there’s a lot to do on my own farm, so I won’t be twiddling my thumbs😅

I started the day helping out in Field 41 once more – cultivating the land ready for the next crop…

…After just doing the harvest there in the previous month, it was good to get a second look so soon. I really think this will be a good field to purchase in the future despite a couple of minor issues with adjacent trees that impact on working around the edges.

Back on my own farm and I sowed my Winter Barley in fields 1…

and 2. After which I rolled both to compact the soil around the seeds…

…preventing soil erosion and slightly improving the yield. The rain arrived as I worked but that’s not an issue when rolling. Checking the contracts list I found a job to harvest Soya Beans in field 69. That’s the second largest field in the area and would be quite a challenge. I decided to take the job because it’s close to the delivery point which reduces travel time. All I had to do was wait for the rain to stop😅

After the rain had passed, I got started. I divided the field into areas. In this shot you can see me working the first area…

…The area beyond the line of trees and the wind turbine is also part of the field – giving an idea of the scale of the task in hand! Fortunately Soya Beans don’t fill the harvester’s tank as quickly as Wheat, for example, and I was able to cut quite a lot of crop for each tank full. Even so, I didn’t finish the harvest until the start of the next week! That’s the last of the beans being loaded in the trailer…

I rested and then made a late start doing some work on fields 12 and 14. I ran the cultivator over 12 once more to smooth the surface following last month’s stone removal…

…I now realise that I probably didn’t need to do that – we live and learn! Then I cultivated 14…

Late in the week, with rain forecast, I decided to take a break. At the start of the 3rd week I took another Soya harvest in a smaller field before deciding to mow the grass by the yard…

…It’s quite a process with that old cutter! It left me with a lot of time to think as I tedded the grass…

…There has to be a better way especially when I take contract jobs on larger fields. The Baler produced 31 bales from this cut…

…earning me close to €2k. At this rate I’ll be in a position to buy Field 40 or 41 by Christmas! But with only a mowing contract available for the last week of the month, I decided to look again at the mowing options. Browsing the catalogue I found this SiP 300 Disc Cutter…

…Now, that’s a price I can afford and if I sell the clippers and take the mowing contract over on field 53, I might even still increase my bank balance! I decided to make the purchase and took the mowing job…

…I have made Hay in field 53 before, so I knew how long the job should take. Last time we finished around 22:00 after delivering the bales to the biomass plant. This time with the new cutter and a dedicated bale trailer, we were finished and home for tea before 19:00. And my bank balance was improved by around another €2k – Saving time and making money!😎👍

This latest purchase is a part of the farm’s gradual evolution. Some older machines have been replaced by newer equipment better able to do the job and in a couple of cases I have bought modern equipment – this SiP and the Fliegl trailer. Older items that can still do a good job will soldier on like the Baler, Tedder and Windrower. Just like on many real-world farms, I won’t be doing change for change’s sake. The main target now is to get the money together for the next field purchase as the expansion continues. October is next and I’m expecting my Barley crop to sprout along with weeds. I’m also hoping for some harvesting contracts for Corn and Sunflowers that will help me on my way to the next field. Then we’ll be into late Autumn and Winter with our stored grains to sell. At present the future is rosy on Osada😊👍

Fresh Fields

It’s August in Osada… The height of the harvest season but also a time for preparing fields for the next crop – will I cope or will something sneak under the radar?

1st week of August and fields 1 & 2 are green with Oilseed Radish…

…I’ll need to find time to plough that crop in ready for sowing – I’m planning on Winter Barley for these two fields. Fields, 3, 12 and 14 all have crops ready to harvest. Those will be my priority before turning my attention to neighbours fields. I sorted out field 3 first…

…Then field 14, then finally field 12. I got a nice load of Sorghum from that field…

All of my harvested grain went to the silo for future sale when the prices have increased. Harvesting done, I attacked the cultivating in field 1 to finish off the week…

…Field 2 was going to have to wait for the second week.

Week 2 and now I was able to help out with contracts for other farmers – here’s a Sorghum crop I’m harvesting in field 32…

…that was one of three fields harvested that week which brought in some good money. But I still had some unfinished business in my own fields. With rain forecast for the weekend I was working late baling the straw…

…before taking it in darkness to the biomass plant…

…80 bales between fields 3 and 14 – that earned me over €4k 😎

The 3rd week was more of the same – harvesting for neighbours. But I also picked up a cultivating job…

…which I combined with cultivating field 12.

Harvesting continued in the 4th week of August and this time I was cutting Oats in field 41…

…and Wheat in field 71. I closed out the week with some improvement work on field 12 – it came with a lot of large stones, so I bought a stone-bucket and set to work clearing them…

…They weigh a lot, so I had to be careful when tipping them into the trailer…

That covers the August activities on the farm but as usual it doesn’t tell all the story. There’s all the pre-planning / musings that go on in the background: –

My target fields – ones I’d like to own – increased. Having worked field 41, I can see the benefit of owning that field as well as field 40 – they’re both easily accessed along the track behind my yard. I also have some fields that I don’t want – in some cases that’s because they will be hard to work but in a lot of cases it’s because they provide regular work for me and the additional income is very helpful.

The yard is now overflowing and I wonder how long it will be before my grain storage reaches capacity. There are a couple of options to expand the yard and the storage for crops and machinery. The first is to buy the land adjacent to my existing plot and knock down the sheds, replacing them with silos and a more open-plan shed for machinery. The second is to build on the grass field in my existing plot, possibly removing a couple of the trees from the boundary along with the fence to allow access. Then fencing the area with an access point to the lane at the back. This latter option has cost advantages although it would result in losing my income from Haymaking. It would also put Sheep farming on hold but I could possibly do Chickens instead. Lots of thinking going on…

Oh! and did I mention that I’ll be able to afford a planter come Spring for Corn and Sunflowers – I just need to prepare fields 12 and 14 for those crops. I think field 3 may get sunflowers too 😎👍

September will be a little quieter but I’ll still have a bit to do 😅👌